rationally followed out the means by which it might still have been averted.[1]
At sunset, on the 28th, a place was marked out for the breaching batteries; and as they were only four hundred yards from the wall, no doubt was entertained of their speedily effecting their object. Two of five and six guns respectively were erected, seventy yards distant from each other; but, as only one could be completed by the morning of the 30th, its fire was directed, not against the spot intended to be breached, which it was not desirable the enemy should yet know, but against the adjoining bastion, whose fire might have taken the assailants in flank. Enfilading batteries were also constructed, which were expected to render it impossible for the enemy to remain on the walls during the assault.
On the 2nd of May the two principal batteries were completed, and opened a heavy fire on the curtain to the right, several guns of large calibre being gradually got to work. The old masonry, unable to support this well-served and well-sustained cannonade, began to yield: masses of the wall came down into the ditch, a breach in the fausse-braye was reported practicable, and on the 3rd of May the face of the curtain was in such a state of ruin that fascines, scaling-ladders, and other implements of storm were brought into the trenches, and preparations made for an immediate assault. On that night Lieutenants Farquhar and Lalor crossed the river, which they found easily fordable, with a smooth rocky bottom, and set up sticks to indicate the most convenient passage. The retaining wall of the fortress being only seven feet high, presented no obstacle whatever to the troops, and there was a practicable breach of a hundred feet wide.
Before daybreak on the 4th of May, the troops destined for the assault were stationed in the trenches. They consisted of nearly two thousand four hundred European
- ↑ "During the whole of the siege Tippoo appears to have laboured under an infatuation that Seringapatam was impregnable, and his constant expression upon every occasion was, 'Who can take Seringapatam?'" – Beatson's "War with Tippoo."
